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Hingston Down Mine, Cornwall

Principal ores: COPPER & TIN

Callington: grid reference SX409714

Notable minerals: Arsenic, Chalcopyrite, Fluor, Mispickel & Wolfram.

LocationHingston Down Mine was a large copper mine located near Gunnislake in the Tamar Valley in East Cornwall and part of the Callington Mining District.

Hingston Down Mine lies one and a half miles west of Gunnislake and began work in 1846. Spargo in his book The Mines of Cornwall; Statistics and Observations (1865) states that the mine was managed by Captain Thomas Richards and employed 225 people. This was broken down as 167 men, 33 females and 25 boys. Equipment at the mine was reported as a 50-inch pumping engine and two combined winding and crushing engines - a 30-inch and a 17-inch.

The mine worked a number of lodes with the major ones being Main Lode; South Lode; Plantation Lode; No.1; No.2 and No.2 South Lode from the following shafts: Bailey's; Morris'; New Shaft all on Main Lode. Hitchen's Shaft on South Lode. Little Miss Joan Shaft and Old Plantation Shafts on Plantation Lode.

Records of production for Hingston Down Mine were: 64,440 tons of 4.75% copper ore and 4 tons of black tin between 1850 and 1882. In 1878, 37 tons of mispickel was produced. Between 1905 and 1909, 250 tons of black tin, 680 tons of 7.75% copper ore, 146 tons of wolfram and 200 tons of arsenic were produced. In the final years of the mine, 1916 and 1917, 14 tons of fluorspar as well as 6 tons of wolfram, 7.75 tons of arsenic and 2.75 tons of black tin were produced.